For folks educated way past their raisin' ... "Praecipitatum verius quam editum" --- By the Woulda-been Poet Lariat of the Shoulda-Been State of Sequoyah.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

It's a whole new ballgame

With Mama ER.

And it kicked me in the teeth and gut so hard that after stopping by here, the hospital, right after church today I went home and slept hard, in self-defense, for a few hours while Dr. ER and Big Brudder sat with her.

My heart broke. It's being patched.

Thanks to Mr. D, at church, who stops by this blog a lot, who made sure I saw him this morning and got a handshake and hug -- and to Mrs. D, too. But I confess I was in such an exhausted emotional daze this morning, I'm not sure who I saw and talked to.

Dr. ER asked me about church, and all I could say was: "Words. Music." I needed to be there, in the presense of mine friends, brothers and sisters. I've said it before: The place drips with Grace. That's what I needed.

Now: Cowboying up.

A CAT scan yesterday showed no hemmorhage ... hemor ... hemmer ... dang it, somebody else look it up -- no bleeding in the brain. A CAT scan tomorrow will determine whether it was, in fact, a stroke and, if so, how severe.

She's over there now, moving around her right hand and arm.

Looked like she was sprinkling flour and patting down dough. Then she kept picking up the edge of her blankie, and it looked like she was hanging laundry on a clothesline. She's dreaming.

She knew Dr. ER and Big Brudder were here all day, and she made us all a smoochy face when asked. ... Damn it to hell, this is hard. Damn eyes are leaking.

... Ahem. Saw the doc in the cafe earlier. He said, and this is a significant shift: "We're doing what we can. I'm ready for her to act more like 60 than 84. Hang in there, pardner. We're doing what we can."

The italed parts are what's new. A sign that the doc, for all his ability, is now doing what I tried and failed to do last night: Putting Mama ER in God's hands.

I did that last night, then took her back -- and I know this is just a metaphor for how we human beans *deal* with this kind of thing, because He really does have the whole world in His hands, one person, one heart, one life at a time.

Made me think of a line I picked up years ago from a Baptist preacher.

We are to make our lives living sacrifices to God. The problem with living sacrifices is they sometimes crawl off the altar. It's an on-and-off thing with me, as it is with anyone who's honest.

Aw, dammit, don't look now, but you've even got atheists praying for you and Mama ER. For her to start feeling/getting better, and for the strength for you to hang in there. And if cowboying up is how you best handle it, then for you to be able to keep doing that.

brudder,My thoughts are that mama has been a very good person her whole life and God is not going to give her more pain or misery than he has to for reasons unknown to us. This time he's giving us now is so we have no doubts that we have done all we could to make her life as good as possible. My prayers are as they were for our Dad, to recover and come home, but if it is her time to at least make it home where she will be more at ease. All we can do is hope and pray that God makes the decision that we want. Everyone we both know is praying day and night for us all and that's a comfort.

Thou who hast brought us to this naked life of the soul,Thou who broodestOn the face of the waters, wilt Thou, some evening on earth, relateThe tale of the hand that wraps us in the burning shirt of Nessus?(St.John Perse, translated by WH Auden and Leif Sjoeberg)

About Me

A Yankee editor friend called me an "erudite redneck." That about sums it up. WHAT I'M READING .....
GORE VIDAL, "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated" (New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2002).
NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS, "The Last Temptation of Christ" (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960).